Pit (botany)

“ When the plants are put into the ground there should be one vine to each hole; and, as every hole is made opposite a rafter, there is thus one vine allotted to every sash or light. A shallow pit is made in the ground for each vine, and, [Pg 252] the pot being either broken with the spade or the plant carefully turned out of it, the ball of earth containing the roots is placed in the pit, in such a manner as to leave the cane as nearly as possible in the same position as it occupied when the plant was in the pot. ”

“ From this we may go on to other pistils in which several carpels are completely fused together. Next, the compact body thus formed may be sunk down in the expanded top of the stem (the receptacle) . Or the other parts of the flower—sepals, petals, stamens—may in their lower part be fused with the walls of the pistil, and may thus appear to spring from the top of it. In such cases the structure of the flower may easily be wrongly interpreted, and reference to a work on systematic botany is necessary if pitfalls are to be avoided. ”

“ VEN the most casual observer can hardly pass a bed of these most remarkable plants without being struck by their appearance, indeed, from root to flower, it is every way worthy of our notice and admiration.
The Pitcher Plant is by no means one of those flowers found singly and in inaccessible bogs and dense cedar-swamps, as are some of our rare and lovely Orchids. In almost any grassy swamp, at the borders of low lying lakes, and beaver-meadows, often in wet spongy meadows, it may be found forming large beds of luxuriant growth. ”

“ We will suppose by way of illustration that near us flows a river, on the rising ground above which is a pit that we propose to visit for the purpose of putting our apparatus into practical operation. When we have reached the floor of the pit, and stand looking up at the section before us, we are at first rather puzzled as to what the beds, which we see before us, are; for as the pit has not been worked for some time, its sides are partially overgrown with grass, and in places bits and pieces of the upper beds have fallen down and form a heap beneath which the lower ones lie buried. ”

“ A forcing house, whilst it secures all the advantages which are presented by a pit, combines with these, some important points which are peculiarly its own: by adopting a pit, we provide a structure of which Cucumbers manifest their approval, by thriving equally as well as in their more ancient location on a dung bed; but further than this, a pit enables us to dispense with much of the labour, and all the filth, and the uncertainty which are consequent on the use of fermenting manure as a means of keeping up the temperature in which they are grown. ”

“ It is preferable, however, to have a pit beneath the frame in which the manure is placed. If the bed is to be started in midwinter or very early in the spring, it is advisable to make this pit in the fall and to fill it with straw or other litter to prevent the earth from freezing deep. When it is time to make the bed, the litter is thrown out, and the ground is warm and ready to receive the fermenting manure. ”

“ An interesting feature of the minute anatomy of Euflorideae, as the Red Algae, exclusive of the Bangiaceae, have been termed, is the existence of the so-called Floridean pit. When a cell divides it is found that there remains in the middle of the new wall a single large circular pit, which persists throughout the life of the cells, becoming more and more conspicuous with the progress of the thickening of the wall. ”

“ There is nothing like a central pith. And yet the brown external coat, though not separable like the bark of a root, bears so great a resemblance to that part, as almost to stagger my opinion. The taste of the dried plant has nothing of a fungus-like flavour, but in its slight astringency agrees with many, almost tasteless, roots. The above history of the origin of the plant, from a piece of wrought wood, and its copious growth, must preclude all idea of its being any thing else than a parasitical fungus. ”

“ The pith will be, in apples, an iron-rust color, and in pears greenish black or pepper color; the inner skin will be discolored, and the wood of a greenish, waxy appearance. On cutting down to the point where these shoots unite with the branch or trunk, the diseased sap will be found to have discolored the whole neighborhood. In many cases which we have examined, half the trunk is affected. We examined a bearing pear-tree, which to the eye has not one sign of unhealthiness, but which, on cutting, is found to be affected throughout, and will, undoubtedly, die in spring. ”

“ The Pistils, no less essential than the Stamens, stand within them in the centre of the flower, and are generally fewer. When in a different flower, on the same or a different plant, that are not always central. Linnæus conceived them to originate from the pith, and the stamens from the wood, and hence constructed an ingenious hypothesis, relative to the propagation of vegetables, which is not destitute of observations and analogies to support it, but no countenanced by the anatomy and physiology of the parts alluded to. ”

“ A cold pit is the best place for them. Sow now, for decorating the house in early spring, Clarkia pulchella, Nemophila insignis, Ergsimum Peroffskianum, Œnothera roses, Collinsia bicolor, Veronica syriaca, and Chinese primroses. ”

“ In many cases cross-pollination is assured because the stamens and the pistils are in different flowers (diclinous) . Monœcious and diœcious plants may be pollinated by wind or insects, or other agents (Fig. 204) . They are usually wind-pollinated, although willows are often, if not mostly, insect-pollinated. The Indian corn is a monœcious plant. The staminate flowers are in a terminal panicle (tassel) . The pistillate flowers are in a dense spike (ear) , inclosed in a sheath or husk. Each “silk” is a style. Each pistillate flower produces a kernel of corn. ”

“ When both stamens and pistils are found in the same blossom, as is the case with most varieties, it is called a perfect flower, or staminate. In rare instances, strawberry flowers are found which possess stamens without pistils, and these are called male blossoms; far more often varieties exist producing pistils only, and they are named pistillate kinds. Either of the last two if left alone would be barren; the male flowers are always so, but the pistillate or female flowers, if fertilized with pollen from perfect-flowered plants, produce fruit. ”

“ The pots should be watered so as to settle the soil, and be placed in the close atmosphere of the propagating pit or frame, where they will need scarcely any water until the buds are seen pushing through the surface. ”

“ To make the pit, run the plough along from two to four furrows, and throw out the soil with the shovel to the requisite depth, which may be from six to ten inches; now, if the design is to roof over the pit, the cabbages may be put in as thickly as they will stand; if the heads are solid they may be either head up or stump up, and two layers deep; but if the heads are soft, then heads up and one deep, and not crowded very close, that they [Pg 35] may have room to make heads during the winter. ”

“ Pines.—If the winter fruit have finished blossoming, supply them occasionally with clear liquid manure when they want water. The growth of the crown to be checked, and all useless suckers, gills, &c., to be removed. When a house or pit is devoted to late Pines alone, an abundance of moisture should be supplied. Give abundance of air to the young stock in dungpits, and increase the dryness of the atmosphere, to induce maturity of growth and a hardy constitution against winter. Shift, if not already done, succession plants into larger pots. ”

“ With careful treatment and nurturing in pots for the first winter, in a frost-proof pit or house, they may soon be grown into elegant plants. Cuttings of the ripened wood, put in under bell glasses or hand lights, in a cool but frost-proof pit, will root slowly during the winter. They will root all the surer and quicker if each cutting has a heel of older wood attached to that of the current year's growth. ”

“ The pistil merely opens up a bit and down travels the powder into the seed vessel to help form seed. There would be no real fertile seed without the pollen.
"Sometimes the pollen from one flower falls on its own pistil, sometimes the wind, the bees, the birds carry the pollen to flowers far off and drop it on their pistils. Marvelous, is it not? Everything has to be just right, or the pollen does not do its work nor the pistil, either. Pollen has to be ripe to help make the seed. ”

“ One to two feet is deep enough; this hole is to be filled with beets, and piled up until they form a ridge, and the whole is to be covered with the earth dug from the pit; a drain should be cut round the heap, to carry off all water, it being of importance that the beet be kept dry, and for this reason, ground naturally dry should be selected for the pits: perhaps in our severe climate it may be necessary to spread a little straw or corn-stalks on the outside of the heaps, to keep out the frost; if put inside, it might rot and spoil the beets ”

“ And why else in the smaller parts of the Root, where the Pith is often wanting, are the Pores there greater? Why is the Pith in all primitive growths the most Sappy part, why hath it so great a stock of Sap, if not after due maturation within it self still to be disbursed into the Fibres of the Lignous Body? Why are the annual growths of all both Plants and Trees with great Piths, the quickest and the longest? ”

“ In the true grasses the stems are round and hollow, and the sheaths of the leaves open at one side; but in their cousins the sedges, the stems are solid and angular, and the leaf-sheaths form perfect cylinders. The highest leaf on the stem of the grass acts as a cradle for the buds until they are sufficiently formed to emerge to the open day. In the sedges the male and female parts of the flower, that is, the stamens and pistils, are on separate spikes, or, at any rate, in separate florets. Both sedges and grasses have three stamens, and most of them two pistils. ”

“ When plunged in a pit or frame to preserve them from frost, watering is all the attention they will need, but of this there must be plenty, particularly when the plants begin to flower. Pot the roots between one and two inches deep, in rich soil, and with the eyes upwards. A large pot will accommodate several roots. ”

“ The bark and the wood grow thicker every year, while the pith, on the contrary, grows more slender, so that in a branch of one year it is of a larger size than it is in the same branch when two years old, and so on. In very young branches, while in an herbaceous state, the pith forms the greatest part of its substance; but when the fibres are stronger, the pith becomes less succulent, and surrounded with a tube of wood ”

“ In many annual stems the pith, abundant and very juicy while they are growing, becomes little more than a web, lining the hollow of the complete stem, as in some Thistles. Many grasses and umbelliferous plants, as Conium maculatum or Hemlock, have always hollow stems, lined only with a thin smooth coating of pith, exquisitely delicate and brilliant in its appearance. ”

“ The fact that modern tree roots invariably sought the richer soil of the pits' contents makes it quite probable that there are numerous other pits on the site that are still hidden beneath standing trees or cut stumps.
Dating: There is little doubt that Pit A was filled during the first decade of the 18th century.
PIT B
This pit (T.N. 30) was approximately circular, with a diameter of 9 ft. 4 in. and a maximum depth of 2 ft. 8 in. It was covered by part of the kitchen's north wall and by the whole of the east side of the kitchen chimney. ”

“ In the above account of a few common pith-casts it has been pointed out that there is occasionally satisfactory evidence for connecting certain casts with wood of a particular structure, and with sterile and fertile foliage-shoots of a definite type. It is, however, impossible in many cases to recognise with any certainty the leaf-bearing branches and strobili of the different casts of Calamites; it is equally impossible to determine what type of pith-cast or what type of foliage-shoots belongs to petrified stem-fragments in which it is possible to investigate the microscopical features. ”

“ Every fruit catalogue states which are pistillates, and their need of a perfect-flowering kind near them. Again, it is urged that this necessary proximity of two kinds leads to mixtures. It need not, and, with the plant grower, can only result from gross carelessness. The different beds may be yards apart. In order to secure thorough fertilization, it is not at all necessary to plant so near that the two kinds can run together. In a large field of pistillates, every tenth row should be of a staminate, blossoming at the same time with the pistillate. ”

“ In a water-lily, too, the petals gradually become stamens, so, perhaps, the leaf came first, ages and ages ago, and little by little it has changed, first to sepals, then petals, then to stamens and pistils, so that it could make seeds and scatter them to the wind. Gardeners make double flowers out of single ones by a process of turning stamens and even pistils into petals. The double flower is sometimes very beautiful, but it is not the most perfect flower. The wild rose is more perfect than the finest double American Beauty. ”